Why are Android apps so hard to use?

Gmail on Android doesn't change very often. Once you get used to the initial learning curve it gets better and stays pretty much the same.

That said, you can also use the mobile website version if you prefer, just use a browser. Or the simple HTML version: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/146dsf3hdastv/?v=lui

Mobile apps have their own UI because the operating system has its own guidelines. Websites don't have a UI framework standard so they just kinda make it up, and maybe you're used to that.

If you don't like Android's UX overall, why don't you try something different? If you're on pure Android, try Samsung (or vice versa). Or try iOS and see if you like it. They're not all that different these days but it's worth a shot.

Shrug. You can also just get a tablet or big foldable phone and use the browser there like you would on a desktop. But the apps are here to stay, so you'd have to go out of your way to avoid them.

You start with a general question (perceived unwieldiness of a system) and then focus on one particular app. I haven't used the gmail app for over two years, but back then it wasn't particularly hard to use.

> there are different versions and never works smoothly.

Incidentally, that was my experience with iOS in corporate environments (eg. MS Exchange).

Android is meant to be customisable and extensible, which necessarily means there are more than one way to do things - those ways manifest as choices which increase complexity.

A bit unfair that title mate.

That's a single app in a million apps. Yes, there's poor and low standard apps in the market, but that can happen regardless of the underlying OS.

My only problem with Android is that Google doesn't allow to filter by country, I hate to see chinese clones while searching for something.

Other than that, it's the same across platforms, good and bad developers, good and bad UI/UX designs.

What mobile platform, if any, did you use before Android?

I used PalmOS for years before switching to iOS. Whenever I've picked up an Android phone I have felt confused by the interface, but long-time Android users tell me they feel the same about iOS.

One thing I notice is that app developers seem to put more effort into clean usability for their iOS versions over their Android versions, even when they are using multiplatform app development platforms.

Even Google's first party apps seem better, more polished, and more paid attention to on iOS over Android

Android apps are fine in general. It's just what you're used to.

It's like when people complain about linux Adobe alternatives being hard to use. That's just an opinion.

These types of complaints usually have a telling lack of specificity.

Android had their own best practices. Designers would often be in the Apple ecosystem and design Android things around iPhone best practices.

So you'd get Android design as some kind of hybrid.

There used to be something called an up button on Android. It was the arrow on the top left. It would jump up a category, so if you were browsing deep into a bunch of games, it would jump you up into the games category, instead of you having to press back 40 times.

But designers saw top left back arrow as a back button because who design it don't use it. Why would you have two back buttons? Why even make a back button so far from your thumb?

The Google apps actually follow Android best practices.

This isn't always good. There's a new trend towards accessibility, which ends up being a flex of designers putting gray on gray and still pass accessibility guidelines.